Garden Gnomes and Teaspoons
by kira66
Summary: When Jack was seven, his mother took his little brother and walked out on the family. Now, thirty-two years later, he comes face to face with his past. How will Jack handle it? How will Eureka? Soon to crossover with BTVS.
1. Chapter 1

Eureka's Sheriff, Jack Carter, grunted as he tugged the last box containing his fathers, and now his, personal belongings out of the back of his jeep. "And you called Gramma Carter a packrat. You really shoulda looked in the mirror, Dad." He mumbled, never having realized that his father had taken after his mother when it came to keeping and throwing stuff away, as he carried the overloaded cardboard box into his bunker/smart house. "S.A.R.A.H. door!" He called out once he was inside and lowering the box to the floor with the others; twenty in all.

"Will that be all, Sheriff?" Fargo's feminine voice, the voice of S.A.R.A.H. the smart house, asked.

"Yeah, thanks for keeping the door open." By now Jack didn't even notice that he spoke to his house like he spoke to a human being.

Henry Deacon, Eureka's Jack-of-All-Trades, looked up from the box he was currently picking through. "Are you ready to tell me why Allison placed you on two week suspension?" He had agreed to help Jack sort through fathers belongings hoping that his friend would open up and talk to him about yesterdays events; events that got the easy going Sheriff suspended for two weeks with orders to steer clear of GD until the suspension was lifted. Eyeing a framed photograph of Jack and his father, he waited to see if Jack would talk about it.

Jack dropped onto the couch across from the one Henry was sitting on and pulled a random box over in front of him. "It's no big deal." He brushed the question off as he began to sort through the papers held within the box.

"No big deal? You've been banned from GD for two weeks!" Henry pointed out. Nobody had ever been banned from GD, not even the scientist that had managed to melt half of the fourth floor a number of years ago. If memory served him, that guy was still employed _and_ working at GD.

"It's only two weeks." Again Jack dodged the question seemingly too involved with sorting papers to give a real answer.

Henry threw his hands in the air and shook his head. "Now I see where Zoe gets her pigheadedness from." He mumbled but stopped asking in favor of pulling out picture frames and wiping off years of accumulated dust.

Jack chuckled but was inwardly glad that Henry let the subject drop, for now. "Is your father still alive, Henry?" He asked wanting to keep Henry off the subject of his suspension for as long as possible.

"No, Dad passed away three years and Mom followed a year later." Henry looked up from the picture frame he was currently cleaning. "Were you and your father close?" He couldn't help but notice the number of pictures of just Jack and his father.

"Yeah, we were." Jack said with a small smile. He looked up from the stack of papers he was currently sorting. "Dad was all Lexus and I had. He bandaged our scrapped knees and attended our school events. He was the greatest Dad any kid could ask for." He went back to sorting.

Henry smiled. "So your sisters name is really Lexus? I thought for sure Lexi was short for Alexandria."

Jack looked up again. "Nope, she's Lexus alright. She got her name because Dad said he always wanted a Lexus but couldn't afford one. By naming her Lexus, he got his car; even if it was in the form of a daughter. And it's that exact reason why by the age of eight she was making people call her Lexi. _I_, of course, called her Stretch and did so until the day she graduated high school." He chuckled at the memory.

"Jack, why isn't your mother in any of these pictures?" Henry asked once he noticed a lack of a woman, other than Lexi, in any of the pictures, even family photos were of just Jackson, Jack's father, Jack, and Lexi. Not a motherly figure in sight.

All good humor left Jack's face. "I told you that Dad was all we had." He pointed out then sorted through the papers for a few seconds before sighing and focusing back on his friend. "Elizabeth walked out on the family when I was seven and Lexi was one. A week later I had a...meltdown, I guess you could say, and I took Dad's hammer and lighter and destroyed all photo's with her in; even the family ones, not that there were many. I almost burned down the house that day, lucky for me Dad walked in just as the curtains caught fire and managed to put them out with a nearby fire extinguisher." He shook his head. "I was a messed up kid."

Henry was surprised since both Jack and his sister seemed to be such well adjusted adults. "I'm sorry to hear that. I'm sure she had a very good reason for leaving."

"Oh, she had a reason alright." Jack told Henry, grimly. "She left because she got tired of Dad holding her back with his normalcy and blandness. Said she was tired of living with a man that had the IQ of a garden gnome and the emotional range of a teaspoon." He frowned. "They had forgotten I was in the room." He explained. "I heard _and _saw the entire fight."

"You were only seven right?" Henry asked. What kind of woman would say those things in front of a child, her child at that? "It must have confused you when she said those things to your dad."

Jack shrugged. "Not really, she had said things like that before but never to his face. She'd always say _'Jackie, if your father was any denser he'd be packaged and labeled as a pound cake_.' or '_I don't why I ever married a man who's IQ can be measured on one hand!_' I might not have understood the words at the time but I did understand the tone of voice she used. I had heard her use it before."

Henry frowned and pulled another box over, removing the empty one. "Did you ever see her again?"

"I saw her on the news once or twice." Jack said, purposely misunderstanding the question.

"That's not what I meant and you know it." Henry chided. "Did you have any contact with her after she walked out?"

Jack shook his head. "She never wrote or called. I guess Lexi and I were just as normal and bland as Dad. But that's okay, we never missed her, Dad made sure of that. And I guess it helped that Lexi was too young to even remember her and I was just old enough to hate her guts."

Henry shook his head. "I'm sure there was another reason why she didn't try to contact you." But he couldn't think of one right now.

"You don't need to defend her, Henry. It happened along time ago. We dealt and moved on. Whatever the reason was, it doesn't matter anymore. She stopped being our mother the moment she walked out the door. That's the reason why we call her Elizabeth." Jack explained and sneezed from the dust Henry was depositing in the air.

"Bless you." Henry hadn't even realized he had continued to remove and clear off picture frames until Jack sneezed. Glancing down, he noticed the picture in his hand was different. It was the last one in the box but it also looked to be a complete family photo. A closer inspection showed signs fire damage around the corners of the photo inside the frame. It must have been a picture salvaged by the elder Carter after little Jack tried his hand at being a firebug. Dark eyes darted from one smiling face to the next. He could easily identify Jackson in the middle, Jack on the right, and Lexi on Jackson's lap, all were blonde. But there were two faces in the picture that he didn't know. One was a pretty red headed woman with serious eyes, that looked alarmingly familiar, and the other was a red headed toddler that had curly hair, just like Jackson had. He wanted to ask who they were but was afraid Jack would shut down completely about his family and he was enjoying getting to know his best friend. "Jack, I'm going to assume that this is your mother. And if that's the case, then who is the little boy on her lap?" He held the picture out for Jack to see.

Jack froze and took the picture being held out to him. He swallowed hard not having seen the photo within the heavy frame since the day he erased all traces of Elizabeth from their lives; or so thought. "That's um..." He cleared his throat. This was getting dangerously close to why he was suspended and he wasn't sure he wanted to reveal the reason to his friend. "That's nobody, forget you even saw this picture." He didn't even glance at it again as he deposited it into a nearby, nearly overflowing, garbage can.

Henry frowned as the picture was placed, in the garbage, with the other items Jack felt had no purpose. "Do you have another sibling other than Lexi?" That was the obvious conclusion but he hadn't seen another child in any of the other photos.

Sighing, Jack knew Henry wasn't going to drop it. "His name is Carson and he's a year older than Lexi." He grudgingly told his friend. "He's also the only child Elizabeth ever loved, proven by the fact that she took him with her when she left us."

Now Henry knew why Jack was reluctant to talk about the boy. "She took him with her? Didn't Jackson object?"

Jack shook his head. "Dad had no say in raising Carson. He was Elizabeth's son and to prove it she gave him _her_ surname instead of _ours_. I'm not even sure he was listed on the birth certificate as the father, she may have just left that blank so he could never have any claim on herlittle _Einstein_." He couldn't help but sneer at the pet name his mother had given the boy.

"Your brother was bright." Henry stated instead of questioned. He was beginning understood why Jack sometimes got overly frustrated when working a case that involved one of the many geniuses that resided in Eureka.

"Extremely." Jack confirmed, dryly. "He was crawling at three months, talking at four months, and walking at five months. By the time he was a year old, he could say his ABC's, count to one hundred, and name all our presidents." He stood and began to pace around his living room. "Big whoop!" He threw his hands in the air as years and years of resentment bubbled to the surface. "I mean, what kid can't say their ABC's and count by the time their one? And who cares if he could play the piano at just a year and a half? She forced all of us to take music lessons, not like he was the only one of her kids that could play an instrument!"

Henry listened at his friend rant. Something was becoming to clear to him as Jack spoke. Something he never thought possible with the way he acted. "Jack, when did you learn your numbers and letters?"

Jack paused in his mini tiraid. "I dunno." He shrugged his shoulders. "Prolly the same time other kids could, ten, eleven months?"

"Most children don't learn their numbers and letters until their four or five, maybe even six _years_ old in some cases." Henry watched his friend as he revealed this and wasn't surprised to see him looking anywhere but at him. "Jack...are you passing?" It sounded like a ridiculous question but it was relevant. Passing was coined back when slavery was legal and light skinned children of white masters and black slaves could pass as white. It also referred to someone who had above average intelligence but refused, for one reason or another, to actually live up to their potential. They instead chose to pass themselves off as normal and rarely got anything above a C in school. They also had the tendency to act stupid around those that had an intellect that matched their own.

"Am I passing what?" Jack asked, confused. "What are you talking about Henry? And why are you looking at me like that?"

Henry continued to eye his friend. "You told Zoe that you got one eleven on your IQ test, was that the truth?"

Jack furrowed his brow. "Of course it's the truth!" He sputtered. "Why would I lie about a stupid IQ test that I took in high school?"

"Because I think you're smarter than you act. I think you've grown up resenting intellect because of your mother and would do anything within your power to be nothing like her even if that meant pretending to be stupid for the rest of your life." Henry stood and shoved his hands into the pockets of his overalls. "What does your sister do, Jack?"

"What?" Jack was thrown with the seemingly out there question. "She's an infectious disease specialist with the world health organization." He was proud of his baby sister so why shouldn't he brag just a little? "She specializes in AIDS."

Henry nodded, expecting an answer like that. "So your sister is a Doctor?"

Jack nodded not understanding where Henry was going with this line of questioning. "She started Med school right after high school. And she finished her training in seven years not eight."

"Graduated in the top ten of her class, I bet." Henry wasn't surprised by that either. It was clear by just talking to her that Lexi was exceptionally bright.

"Second, actually. She would have been first but Andre Dotello slept with the anatomy Professor to boost his grade. He finished with a 4.0 because of his prefect anatomy grade while Lexi got an honest 3.95." Jack explained.

Henry raised an eyebrow. "_The _Andre Dotello? The Doctor to the Stars is a fraud?" He was now glad that they hadn't been able to recruit Doctor Dotello to Eureka. "Imagine that."

S.A.R.A.H. noticed a change in Jack's vitals. "I am detecting an increase in heart rate and blood pressure, are you alright Sheriff Carter?" She inquired, concerned.

Jack stopped his pacing and took a deep, calming, breath. "I'm fine, S.A.R.A.H. but I could really use a beer." He headed towards the refrigerator.

"It is only ten o'clock in the morning. Perhaps you would like a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice instead since you passed on breakfast this morning?" S.A.R.A.H. suggested. "I would also like to express my condolences regarding the loss of your father."

Sometimes Jack felt like he was married again. "Thank you, S.A.R.A.H." He took another breath and let it out. "A glass of orange would be fine." He knew better than try to argue with the house, the house always seemed to win; hence why he felt like he was married again. "You want something, Henry?" He called from the kitchen.

"I stopped by Café Diem before coming here so I'm good." Henry knew Jack was stalling, trying to get him to drop the subject. But he wasn't, not this time. Nor was he going to let it go about the suspension.

Jack waited for his glass of orange juice to appear then downed it. Placing the glass in the sink, he leaned against the counter. The last couple of days was catching up with him and suddenly he felt exhausted.

Henry watched his friend seemingly deflate right before his eyes. "Jack, why did Allison suspend you for two weeks?" He asked, gently, proddingly.

Too tired to care who knew why, Jack began to explain. "I refused to pimp myself out to GD's newest brains."

"_Pimp_ yourself out?" Henry shook his head. "Why did you refuse?" This was odd since Jack seemed to get along with those already in Eureka and those that transfer in. Hell, he was even friends with Zane and he had to be the most difficult add-on in the history of GD.

Jack pushed off the counter and joined his friend back in the living room. "It might seem childish but I couldn't do it. Not when I found out who they were. I...I just couldn't." He needed Henry, of all people, to understand.

Henry tried to remember the names of the newest scientists but they were eluding him at the moment. "Who are they, Jack? Who is Allison in the process of wooing?"

Swallowing, Jack lowered himself onto the couch and focused on the boxes that still needed sorted through. "Doctors Elizabeth and Carson Carlisle."

"That's right!" Henry now remembered. "Doctor Elizabeth Carlisle is a Biochemical Engineer and her son, Doctor Carson Carlisle is a Biophysicist. Nathan was working on getting them to transfer to GD long before Allison was put in charge. She must have continued the process in his memory."

Jack wanted to scream. "You're not listening to me, Henry! I was suspended because I got very vocal in my refusal to be accommodating to the very people that walked out of my life thirty-two years ago!"


	2. Chapter 2

As Doctor Elizabeth Carlisle made her way through the winding corridors of GD towards Doctor Blake's office, she couldn't help but wonder why she hadn't moved to Eureka sooner. It would have been the ideal place to raise her exceptionally bright son. A sigh escaped her lips and she nodded as she passed one of her new co-workers, a man by the name of Henry Deacon. Pausing, she looked over her shoulder, sure that he had been staring at her but he rounded a corner before she could be sure. Her and her son had been in Eureka for two days now and she had learned, rather quickly, that the town was more of a close knit family than an actual community. It was also a little disconcerting having everybody know everybody elses business. She was an extremely private person and this towns openness was going to take a lot of getting used to. Before she could think further, she found herself standing outside her new bosses office door. She raised her hand to knock but was waved in before she got the chance.

Doctor Allison Blake waved GD's newest employee in and motioned for her to have a seat until she finished her phone call. "So you're going to pick Kevin up after school?" She needed to be sure since she had a meeting with Eva later that was sure to last into the night; meetings with her always did. "I can't thank you enough, Jack." She lowered her voice. Since Nathan's passing a number of months ago, Jack had kept true to his word about being there for her. And recently he had taken a interest in spending time with her genius level, autistic, son, Kevin. The two of them shared a bond that she couldn't even begin to explain. She sighed and rolled her eyes as she held up a finger signaling that she was almost through. "Baseball? He's interesting in learning how to play baseball?" _When had that happened? _She wondered. "As long as he wears the safety gear I don't see why you can't teach him. Yes, I'm serious. No, I haven't inhaled toxic mind altering fumes. I trust you with my son, Jack. Pizza for his dinner is fine and I'll be by at nine to pick him up." She tapped her ear piece once the conversation ended. "So what can I do for you, Doctor Carlisle?" She switched from parent mode to professional mode without a pause or second thought. "Are you and your son settling in okay?"

"We are, thank you for asking, Doctor Blake." Elizabeth believed in formality until told otherwise. "I have a question.."

"No one calls me Doctor Blake around here, except maybe Fargo. Please, call me Allison." Allison told then folded her hands in front of her on the desk. "A question?"

Elizabeth smiled. "Allison, then you'll have to call me Elizabeth." She insisted. "I was going over my class list for the semester and I came across a name that I wasn't familiar with. What can you tell me about a student by the name of Zoe Carter? I asked the school but they said I should make my inquires here?"

Allison sat back in her chair and narrowed her eyes, slightly. "Zoe Carter?" She was well aware that Elizabeth and her son were both teaching a class at the high school along with performing their duties at GD.

"So you know of her?" Elizabeth sat forward in her chair, eager for any information Allison was willing to provide her. "I don't recall meeting any Carter's during my orientation here at Global Dynamics so I'm going to hazard a guess that her parents don't work here?"

"Zoe wasn't raised here. She moved here from LA when her father was recommended for and accepted the position of Sheriff. I met her mother once, she came for a visit, Abby was her name, she's a psychologist in LA." Allison spun around in her chair and removed a framed picture off the table behind her, spinning back around she handed it to the red head. "That was taken a couple weeks ago at the annual GD picnic. Her father is the man wearing the ridiculous _I Replaced the Previous Cook When He Blew Up _apron."

She took the offered picture and couldn't help but gasp. The man was a spitting image of her ex-husband, minus the curly hair, back when she first met him. Elizabeth took in his features and knew right away who he was. "What's his name?"

Allison didn't understand what was going on but she had a feeling that it was significant. "Jack, Jack Carter. Do you know him?" She would be surprised if she did.

Elizabeth, carefully, sat the picture onto the glass top of Allison's desk. She cleared her throat. "My ex-husband is a Carter. I came here trying to find out if she could be related to him." She paused. "Jay came from a big family, he had four older brothers and four younger sisters, and it wouldn't have surprised me in the least if some of their offspring ended up here in Eureka."

"And is she?" Allison motioned to the picture. "You recognize someone in that picture and I'm guessing it's Jack, am I right?" Suddenly all the pieces fit together, including Jack's refusal to have anything to do with Elizabeth and Carson Carlisle. "You're related to him." It wasn't a question but rather a statement of fact.

"I am." Elizabeth confirmed. "I don't know how detailed my personnel file is but Carson isn't my only child. He's not even my youngest."

Allison was stunned since Elizabeth's personnel file only had one child listed. "You're Jack's mother?" She blurted out. "Why didn't he tell me?" She wondered, aloud.

Elizabeth looked down at her hands which were now folded, tightly, in her lap. "I may have given birth to them but I doubt that either my son or daughter look to me as their mother. I haven't seen either of them in thirty-two years." She looked up. "Do you have children, Allison?" She looked at the picture again. "Of course you do." She answered her own question as her eyes rested on the dark skinned youth in the photo. "Have you ever done something to your child that you've regretted for _every_..._single_..._day _of your life?"

"Can't say that I have." Allison answered, honestly. She would never do anything that would purposely cause her son distress. "You said that you haven't seen your children in thirty-two years, why is that?" She had the feeling that this woman needed to talk and at the moment she was the one listening.

"Simply put, I was a self-centered bitch. I thought I knew what was best for my family and when Jay...eh...Jackson disagreed I packed up Carson and moved in with my parents. I only meant to stay away long enough to scare him but days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months until one day I came home from work to find divorce _and_ custody papers waiting for me. I was so angry that he wanted a divorce that I signed those papers out of spite. As for the custody papers...he wanted full custody of Jack and Lexus but there was no mention of Carson...he didn't even want visitation rights, not that I would have given him any back then. It wasn't really a surprise since I never really gave him a choice when it came to Carson but I hurt for my son. By then I wasn't thinking about what was best for my children, I just wanted to hurt Jackson. So I filed my own custody papers and we ended up in court. If I would have stopped for a moment and actually thought about it, I would have realized that I hadn't had a pray when it came to awarding custody of my oldest and youngest child. _I_ was the one that walked out. _I_ was the one that _abandoned_ them. _I _was the reason why my son was lashing out at those around him. _I_ was the one that hadn't attempted any form of communication with them for four months. And in the end _I_ was the one that lost. Carson was six before I got over my anger and resentment and by that time it was too late to even think about trying to restore my relationship with my children."

Allison listened without judgement. "Now I understand why Jack..." She shook her head. "I guess I should apologize to him and take him off suspension." She said quietly, more to herself than Elizabeth.

Elizabeth smiled, slightly. "So much like his father." She remembered, fondly. "I don't suppose you could arrange a meeting between him and I?" She asked, quietly, beggingly.

"I don't know." Allison hesitated. Jack had been clear about wanting absolutely no contact with either Carlisle. He even threatened to quit if she pushed the subject. The thought of losing him so close to Nathan made her physically sick to her stomach. And she couldn't even begin to imagine how Kevin would react to the loss of both Jack and Zoe because she had no doubt that Zoe wouldn't try to stop her father from moving them out of Eureka once she knew the whole story. "I can't promise anything, Elizabeth. Jack loves it here in Eureka and so does Zoe but if I push him into something he doesn't want to do...I won't be the cause of them leaving." She said, firmly.

"All I ask is that you think about it." Elizabeth told her and stood.. Baring ones soul to ones boss on the second day of work had left her emotionally exhausted.

Allison nodded. "I can do that."She picked up the picture and placed it back on the table. "But I must ask you to remember that they aren't kids anymore. Both of them are grown up and from what I've seen, both Jack and Lexi were raised right, regardless of what you may have thought back then. And I know for a fact that they are both fiercely loyal to their father and I think if you speak badly of him, you'll lose them for good." She paused then continued. "Does Carson know what you suspected?"

Elizabeth sighed. "Carson was two when we left. He has vague memories of his big brother and little sister. And even vaguer memories of his father. I think when he saw his own class list, he put two and two together came to the same assumption I did; that he's possibly related to people in this town through his father. I'm sure he never assumed that the relation would be so close but..." She shrugged and pushed the door open to make her exit. "I'm sure he'll take the news well, he was always a mild mannered, understanding, boy." With that said she departed and headed back towards her lab. Half way there she stopped and replayed the last part of the conversation in her head. "She said Jack _and_ Lexi were raised right. And that they _both_ were fiercely loyal to Jackson." She quickly understood what this meant. "My daughter is here as well." She whispered then started walking again when several passerbys gave her strange looks. As she entered her lab she couldn't help but wonder if Jackson was here too?


End file.
